


Codified

by aeli_kindara



Series: Supernatural Codas [7]
Category: Supernatural, Wayward Sisters (TV)
Genre: Episode: s13e01 Lost and Found, Episode: s13e02 The Rising Son, Episode: s13e03 Patience, Episode: s13e09 The Bad Place, Gen, Phone Calls & Telephones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-30
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2019-02-24 01:02:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13202364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aeli_kindara/pseuds/aeli_kindara
Summary: “You can cancel that APB.”Sam sounds exhausted almost beyond speech, and Jody can imagine him slumped forward at some undersized motel desk, thumb and forefinger pinching the bridge of his nose, eyes closed briefly against the ruins of the day.(In which Sam and Jody talk a bunch on the phone, and don't always quite say what they mean.)





	Codified

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sort of a pre-relationship fic; I think of it as Sam/Jody, but your mileage may vary.

“You can cancel that APB.”

Sam sounds exhausted almost beyond speech, and Jody can imagine him slumped forward at some undersized motel desk, thumb and forefinger pinching the bridge of his nose, eyes closed briefly against the ruins of the day. Any impulse to rib him about being an isolationist weirdo who relies on a newcomer like her to stay in touch with other hunters is quenched by a rush of sympathy.

“Yeah?” She’d put down money that Sam has no inkling that it’s five in the morning, or that Jody would be fast asleep at this hour if not for the joys of training day for new recruits at the station. She pours herself a mug of fresh-brewed coffee from the pot and asks, “You find your creepy Satanic nudist?”

Sam laughs, and even that sounds watery, thin. “Yeah. He’s — it’s complicated.”

“Dean said.” Jody tilts the mug toward her face and breathes in deeply. She likes to imagine that the caffeine somehow enters her bloodstream quicker this way, but really, she just likes to wreathe her face in the smell. She leans back against the counter and takes the first scalding sip. “How you holding up?”

“I’m,” says Sam, and then there’s that laugh again, “uh.”

Something sharp and sweet clenches at Jody’s heart, and she wishes she could reach out to touch his hand. Instead, she rests the mug against her chest, warm through her shirt, and smiles back the sudden sting of tears. It’s funny, between her and Sam; they’ve known each other so deeply, in such a small collection of moments, for so long.

Sam says, “Lucifer caught up with us.”

“Sam,” says Jody softly.

“There was a, uh, a portal,” Sam continues, halting. “To another world. Created when Jack was born — that’s the nephilim. We trapped him — Lucifer — on the other side, but — Cas died. And Crowley. And my, uh, our mom got trapped there with him.”

Jody closes her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Sam.”

_Jesus Christ,_ says a corner of her brain. _Dean._

“I, uh.” Sam’s attempt at a smile is as clear as if he were sitting in her kitchen. “I figured Dean wouldn’t have told you.”

“Noope,” Jody agrees, pacing across the room. “Your brother is a special brand of —”

What, exactly, she couldn’t say, and Sam can’t see her inarticulate gesture, but he laughs all the same. “Yeah,” he agrees. “He — thinks Mom’s dead too.”

Jody stills, leaning against the counter. Beyond the sink and the reflection of her face in the window, morning is just beginning to touch the horizon. “And you don’t.”

“I think if Jack could open a portal between worlds once,” Sam says in a rush, “he could do it again.”

For a moment, Jody is silent, just taking this in. “Sam,” she says quietly. “That’s a big gamble.”

“I know,” says Sam miserably. “But it’s — Jody, he’s not what you think.”

Jody glances again out at the sky. She’s got a little time. She pulls out a chair from the kitchen table and sinks into it, coffee mug firmly in hand.

“Tell me about him, then,” she says.

\---

Three days later, when Jody hasn’t heard from Sam, she decides worry is for people both younger and more self-conscious than they, and calls him.

“Hey,” she says when he picks up the phone. “Figured I’d double check that nephilim of yours hasn’t blasted you into another dimension.”

He laughs, surprised. “Hey Jody. No, we’re good.”

“Are you?” she asks frankly.

“We’re — keeping on,” Sam amends.

He tells her about a new Prince of Hell, and about nearly losing Jack. About how he closed the hellgate and turned on Asmodeus when he tried to kill the brothers — “that’s good, right?” — and about how he’s been calm and quiet since returning to the bunker.

“No powers since then, though,” he adds. “I mean, nothing.”

“Would you rather he ripped a hole in the bunker?” Jody asks dryly.

Sam sighs. “No, of course not. I just —”

“You want your mom back,” Jody says into the silence left when Sam cuts himself off. “I get it.”

“I just — I got this second chance, you know?” Sam says. “To have her in my life. And now — and Dean’s being completely defeatist about it, which makes _no sense._ I mean, not long ago he pulled her back from the Men of Letters brainwashing through sheer force of will, but now — it’s like there’s nothing there. And —” He takes a deep breath. “If she _is_ still alive, if she _is_ over in that other world waiting to be rescued, and we’re just twiddling our thumbs —”

“Sam,” interrupts Jody firmly. “I don’t know your mom that well. But she doesn’t seem all that likely to wait to be rescued, if you know what I mean.”

Sam takes a shaky breath. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, you’re right. Hey, um. Thanks.”

Jody smiles, and thinks of her own boys, in the painted-over way that doesn’t hurt so much these days. “Anytime.”

\---

Loving women, these days, is easier than loving men.

Jody knows how stupid that sounds. How irrational the thing in her chest is that tightens and panics at the thought of caring too much, that _believes,_ no matter what she tries to tell it, that her affection carries a reaper with it, bobbing along like a balloon on a string. She had thought she was past it; thought, between Alex and Claire and hell, even Donna, that she’d learned how to live with that fear, how to live _through_ it.

Then there was Asa, and the agony of chance, and if Jody hadn’t been too busy getting possessed by a demon she might well have killed Bucky Sims herself.

It wouldn’t have helped. And she knows the mechanisms inside her by now, knows them too well maybe; enough that sometimes she stops worrying about it and simply lets them work.

That’s how it is with Patience.

Her cell phone rings after just two hours on the road, and her heart leaps in her chest, certain, for a moment, that it’s Patience calling; that she’s about to use all that ridiculous stunt driving she’s trained in to pull a Uie across the interstate median and go tearing back toward Georgia. It’s not, though. It’s Sam.

“Hey,” she says, and winces at how her own voice comes out halfway between a bark and a breathless high schooler picking up her date for the prom.

Whatever it is, it doesn’t seem to register with Sam. “Hey,” he says, voice low, taut. “Hey, um. How’d it go?”

“All right,” says Jody, wrong-footed. “I mean, good. Killed the bad guy. Saved the girl.”

“How,” tries Sam. “How’s Dean? I mean — how does he seem? To you?”

Of course. She’s an idiot. She takes a breath, realigns herself, steadies. “In a world of pain,” she admits. “Bleak. But just as good a hunter as he’s always been.”

Sam swallows, audibly, over the line. “He told Jack he’d kill him.”

It spills out of him in a rush: how he’s been training Jack; trying to get him to move a pencil. How unsure he is of whether he’s doing anything right; if he’s just being his father all over again, because that’s all he ever learned how to do. “Do you think I’m being too hard on him?” he asks.

“Maybe,” says Jody, honestly. She glances over her shoulder to switch lanes, smoothly passing a semi. “But you’re being too hard on yourself for sure.”

Sam makes a small noise. She takes it for the question it is.

“Do you remember,” she asks, “when you thought I was overinvested in Alex? When I was — using her to fill a hole in my life?”

“Jody,” says Sam, and he sounds mortified. “I was —”

“You were right,” says Jody, cutting him off. “That’s exactly what I was doing. It’s exactly what I _did._ I was selfish, and not seeing straight, and I saved her life.”

“You’re not selfish,” Sam demurs quietly.

“Maybe not,” Jody allows. “And maybe I am. I did the same thing today. I gave Patience my card. Told her she — didn’t have to listen to Dean, or her dad, or anyone. I was thinking of Claire, but I could have been thinking of any of them. I wanted to be there for her because that’s what I _do._ It’s how I get my kicks. It’s self-indulgent. It’s ego. But it saves them. Sometimes. And if it does —” She takes a breath. “Who am I to say it’s a bad thing, you know? It’s — giving a damn. For whatever reason, however you get there, it’s better for them than not.”

For a long time, Sam is silent. Jody moves back into the right lane to let the impatient Honda behind her shoot past. She’d feel obligated to pull him over, if she were in her own jurisdiction. She’s grateful she isn’t.

“Thanks,” Sam says quietly.

Jody laughs. They really are a pair. “I’m sorry for dumping that on you,” she says.

“Don’t be,” says Sam quickly. “It helped.” Then: “Even if it didn’t. Still don’t be.”

“Well,” says Jody. “Thanks,” says Jody.

“I haven’t asked,” says Sam. “How’s Alex doing?”

Jody reaches for her lukewarm gas station coffee and smiles. “She’s good. Just wrapped up her first year of nursing school. Aced her exams, even with everything going on. Donna says she spent the whole time we were raiding the British Men of Letters studying. I just helped her move into this new apartment, and it’s great, but the plumbing…”

\---

Sam actually has a suggestion about the plumbing — one that works, no less. When Jody calls him the next day to thank him, he laughs at her comment about hidden talents and confesses that his plumbing knowledge once began and ended with washing machine P-traps.

“And I can’t even claim credit for figuring it out,” he adds, after regaling her with the horror story of his own college apartment. “My only contribution was fainting from the sewer gas coming out of the washer. And then sitting there with ice on my head while Jess Googled it into submission.”

Jody’s fit of the giggles from that image doesn’t subside for a while, even after they’ve both hung up. She forgot to ask him about Dean and Jack, though, so she calls again the next day, and then, because it’s nice, the day after that. She tells Sam about the new officer whose behavior never quite crosses the line into disrespect; about the loneliness of being a woman running a department full of men, about how even Donna doesn’t always understand the things about it that piss Jody off.

“It’s little stuff,” she tries to explain. “I don’t think Hank even knows he does it; I don’t think it’s rebellion, I think he _likes_ me fine. It just takes him three times longer to write a report when I ask him than if Dave or Mike do. And they both think he’s great, and I’m — it would be one thing if I wasn’t their superior, but I am. I can’t exactly go bitching to them about it.”

A week later, she recounts Hank’s takedown at the hands of Mary Ann, the sweetest admin known to man, with undisguised glee, and Sam laughs even harder than she does.

When Sam’s raw and shaken after a hunt with a shifter who’s also a grief counselor, Jody offers him a detailed recounting of the plot of the polyamorous romance novel she’s currently reading. She expects it to make him laugh, and she’s okay with that, is long over being embarrassed about liking the shit she likes. Sam listens carefully, though, and she gets into the telling — setting up the suspense, fleshing out the characters, doing the best justice she can to the writer’s warmth and humor.

“Well?” Sam asks when she stops talking. “What did he decide?”

“I don’t know,” Jody confesses. “I haven’t finished it yet.”

So she reads the rest that weekend, and reports back when she’s done. Sam tells her about his heartbreakingly awkward campaign to do nice things for Dean, and Jody smiles, shakes her head, and keeps her doubts to herself.

Then there’s a bit of a lapse, and the next time Sam calls her, Castiel is back from the dead.

Jody’s got as many questions about that as Sam does — she has her reasons to be wary of loved ones rising from the grave with no apparent strings attached — but she also can’t miss the relief shaking in Sam’s voice at the sea change in Dean. There’s a quality about him like a soldier who can’t quite believe he’s back from the war; like he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop.

He doesn’t tell her that day about Dean’s stunt with the ghosts. That comes later — late night, just a little whiskey-slurred, in the throes of yet another crisis: Jack on the lam again, another hunters’ APB, ideas running out. He sounds lost and almost small, and the story comes from nowhere, like it’s been hanging heavy and bitter on the roof of his mouth for weeks. One moment, he’s logistics and business; the next, on a moon-stained staircase with a needle in his hand, a story of every man’s Death and one man’s despair, the cosmos, other worlds, and —

There are times when Jody could hate the Winchesters for things like this.

She has days when she would give anything, do anything, to have her boys back. Even if it was exactly like before — even for only a few days, even knowing it would all end bloody and worse. Over the years, she’s watched Sam and Dean die and return; heard tales from them about Bobby in heaven and hell, Mary’s resurrection; and now Castiel, and now Dean, dead on a whim, back on less. She doesn’t begrudge them any of it, not really, not in the deepest chambers of her heart or her soul. But the mind is a fickle thing, and a part of her wants to scream sometimes: _What about me? What about my grief, my pain? Is it not cosmic? Is it less? If your soul is more important than nature and its laws, then why aren’t theirs? Why isn’t mine?_

There are also days when she dreads the idea of seeing her husband and child again more than anything else in the world, days when she’s thankful they’ll never rank the attention of gods and reapers and their sisters, and those might be the days she resents Sam and Dean the most.

It’s cruel; she knows it is. It’s selfish and hard-hearted and maybe the most ungenerous thing she’s done to him in all the years they’ve known each other, but she shuffles Sam off the phone with blank-faced words of sympathy, a hearty voice with nothing but the wind blowing inside it. He fumbles his way through his goodbye, and when he hangs up, Jody presses the phone to her forehead and feels nothing but shameful relief.

Five minutes later, standing at the bathroom mirror with an uncapped tube of toothpaste in one hand, she bursts into tears.

\---

The next day is the day she finds them a lead.

She calls it in to Dean, because she’s a coward, but Sam is there too, and doesn’t sound as if he’s overtly furious with her for being the shittiest friend in the universe. She’s too grateful to question it, or to call him back to confront it, but he texts her a couple times from the road, and it puts her a little at her ease.

The Bismarck lead sends them haring off westward after another dreamwalker — just a teenage girl, locked up in a rehab facility, and Jody thinks suddenly, achingly, of Claire, and how many ways she didn’t quite go wrong. It doesn’t sound dangerous, on the scale of what Winchesters cope with, but there’s always the question of Jack and what he might be capable of — what he _is_ capable of, if Derek Swan is any indication.

_Call me later?_ Jody texts, in a minor fit of daring. They’ve never really codified this thing they do, never asked or expected anything, and something about it feels like crossing a line. Like saying: _I have a right to worry about you. I have a right to ask._

_For sure,_ Sam answers immediately, and Jody spends a long minute staring at the screen of her phone before she allows herself a tiny smile.

Sam doesn’t call.

Jody drifts off sometime around 3am with her phone in her hand, and wakes up two and a half hours later with an itching throat and puffy eyes and no new texts or calls to speak of. She drags herself through her morning shower and coffee and calls them both on the drive in to work. Neither one answers.

Which is… fine. They’ve had a late night, maybe, or are coping with the presence of an outsider and hardly need another one butting in. All day at work, she bites her tongue, and sits on her hands to keep from texting.

Back at home, showering for the second time to ease the headache pounding at the backs of her eyes, she decides, _fuck it._

“Hey! Sam,” she says to his voicemail, dried and dressed and more than half ready to go tearing off across the country after him. “Could you call me back?”

At her door, suddenly, a knock sounds. It loosens her hearty bravado, somehow. Turning toward it, she finishes quickly, more quietly: “I just need to know you’re okay.”

Some part of her is certain that it will be him.

There’s no logic in it; no reason. A dozen scenarios sear lightning paths through her brain: Sam and Dean, smiling and whole, here to celebrate a hunt well done; or to bring her a wayward dreamwalker, maybe, or to ask for her help. Sam alone and desperate, Dean gone; Dean with Sam sagging off his shoulder and halfway to death’s door. Castiel, even, here to tell her that something has gone terribly, terribly wrong.

Jody opens the door. She blinks. She stares.

It’s worse.

"Patience?" she says.


End file.
